But Margaret dismissed her and they parted, the young stranger hurrying away down a narrow by-street while her benefactress walked slowly toward the nearest avenue. But she had gone only a few steps when she turned and looked after the shabby figure, which was only a short distance from her. A vivid recollection of that cry that God had heard her prayer, the absolute conviction of it, swept over the stricken woman, and moved by an impulse which she did not pause to question, Margaret ran after the girl through the gathering mist and overtook her, breathless. She turned with a frightened look, full of dread, no doubt, that she must yet give up the miraculously acquired wealth, and she started when Margaret laid a thin, ungloved hand on her arm. “I wanted to ask you,” she began,--and then changed the sentence swiftly into a command,--“pray for me to-night! You believe there is a God--perhaps He’ll hear you again!” “Indeed I will!” the girl cried, bewildered; “oh, I wish--” But the unfinished speech was lost; Margaret had turned and swiftly disappeared again into the folds of the mist; like a shadow the girl saw her vanishing into deeper shadows; something uncanny and marvellous seemed to lurk in the very thought of her beautiful haggard face, the wildness of her smile, and the young woman hurried away, hugging her treasure close, almost persuaded that she had talked face to face with a being from another world. VI AVOIDING the crowded thoroughfares, and no longer remembering her physical weariness or that she had walked for hours without food or drink, Margaret hurried on. She had thought of death, and the means to attain it most swiftly and easily, but as she passed the brilliantly lighted chemist’s window, with its arch hung with bright red Christmas bells, she put away the thought; it was too cheap and sensational and, after all, if there really were a God could she take that swift, shuddering plunge through the blackness of death to meet Him? _The wages of sin is death!_ It thundered in her ears, making God the avenging Deity of the Old Testament, for how little do those who preach sometimes divine the pictures which they frame of Him who was lifted up, as Moses lifted up the serpent in the wilderness, that all men might be saved!